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The various consumer associations, in USA and abroad, they repeat periodically testing car seats, to evaluate the effectiveness, the ability to protect our children while travelling in the car against the dangers of the road.
Needless to say the car seat is an obligation, a legal obligation (resulting from the European Directive 2003/20) and a moral obligation. As the famous slogan of campaign promoted by Parents Grow and from other websites: “If you love him, tie!“.
All car seats, to be placed on the market, must be approved, or undergo manufacturing and performance criteria expressed by the European directive in force. Every child must bear a label indicating mandatory upgrading of legislation whereby the child is approved: the most recent is R44/04.
Although all approved, some seats have features that better help to protect children in the event of any accidents. I have long observed the results of tests and I made a rather precise idea of what makes the difference.
If you compare the results of tests, even among the various vintages, you’ll notice that almost all the seats they get the better score are equipped with a so-called
“anti-shock cushion” front. The great advantage of the pillow front, used
instead of safety belts in five points, consists of more space for the child’s body in the event of impact. The five-point harness, in fact, hold the child effectively, but for this cause the thrust forward due to impact focuses almost entirely on the neck. The classic “lumbago”, to understand. The pillow, instead, allows the upper body to move forward, while holding the child in the seat.
The impact force, i.e., is absorbed by a surface much more, and energy disperses better, without going to weigh all on a single point (the neck). Celebrated in this category are
Cybexseats, in particular the
Cybex Pallasmodel. It features a
pillow front adjustable anti-crash, in order to bring it closer or away from the baby according to its growth, according to two fixed positions. With this installed cushion, Cybex Pallas is an approved car seat as Group 1 (9-18 kg). In this conformation, the child is
in that seat reclining in the headrest! the latter, in fact, is adjustable in 4 positions well.
When the child reaches a weight between 15 and 18 kg, you can remove the cushion and base, and Pallas transforms into a model approved for 2-3 groups, up to medium.
In practice, 2 seats in 1. Similar to Pallas, and always invoice is the German
Kiddy Guardian Pro. It is one of three seggiokini Kiddy equipped with anti-shock cushion, all approved as combined seats for groups 1-2-3, but in principle there is also a Group 1 seat with cushion Kiddy Energy front, the Pro. All these four seats are test winners results of product!
The Kiddy Guardian Pro has a
seat reducer that can be used in two different positions: one for children from 9 to 13 kg, and one from 13 to 18 kg, so follow their growth. Eliminating the reducer and adjusting the backrest width and height of the head restraint, you switch to 15-medium duty conformation.
A plus of Kiddy Guardian Pro is to have the
adjustable seat depth, so you can adapt it to the child’s leg lengthening, obviously very different in the various stages of growth. A solution like this is that
Jané adopted with the
cushion Xtend reducer. It is an accessory for use with the Group 2-3 as
Montecarlo Plusthe, making it so useable also as Group 1. The pillow Xtend Jané, unlike for example of Pallas, is restrained by seat belts exclusively, and not by a fixed distance from joints child: can be a bit more “counterproductive”.
Obviously the issue of the pillow front is not free of problems, above all the reaction of the child: many children have difficulty accepting being so “tucked” into limited spaceone. Often the child, especially in the first year, fails either to support the arms above the pillow, and has the lowest freedom of movement: is a price to pay to be “insured” in the event of an accident, but smaller is really difficult to explain.
Also there is the problem of to pick up and drop off the child from seat. In these models, the cushion is restrained by seatbelts in the car, and manoeuvres to drop the belt buckle and are therefore often hindered by clutter.
Another feature that is common to the winners of the test is headrest controlthe. These are the Side Impact Protection systems, side impact protection. The models depicted above, if we take the case, they are all very headrest with wrapping. This is an important guarantee to protect the head of the children in case of collision, particularly side impacts.
